TODD SEAVEY
author of Libertarianism for Beginners and writer of/speaker about many other things

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Will Liberals Hate “America”?

•Conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza’s documentary America is in New York theatres starting
this week and though it may have a few bits that I, as a libertarian,
disagree with, I’ll have to see it for, among other things, featuring Ronald
Radosh criticizing overrated left-wing revisionist historian Howard Zinn.

Radosh isn’t just some indiscriminate lefty-basher, either.
He was the one who urged me to read and correspond with the late, ideologically
quirky historian Martin Sklar, whose description of our current paradoxical
political system as “corporate liberalism” dating back to the Progressive Era
strikes me as apt.

•In fact, given Ralph Nader’s recent very cordial panel
discussion at the Cato Institute -- with Brink Lindsey, Dan McCarthy, and Tim
Carney -- I hope even the most hardcore of latter-day Progressives may be
starting to worry about the half-plutocratic, half-socialist regulatory
superstate they have wrought.

•Tim’s brother John Carney recently pointed to one reason to
worry that new ideas will find an easier time taking root on the right than on
the left, though: A study suggests liberals
think they’re already diverse in their views but in fact are in lock-step
ideologically, while people on the right tend to assume other conservatives
agree with them but are actually quite diverse in their views.